ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, September 23, 1993                   TAG: 9309230075
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Boston Globe
DATELINE: BOSTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PHONE CALLS MAY NEVER BE LIKE THIS AGAIN

The Federal Communications Commission today will give birth to a potentially huge industry that promises to stuff low-cost telephone headsets into every pocket and create phone numbers to follow you anywhere.

Personal Communications Services encompasses a broad range of wireless offerings - from electronic mail to faxes to phone calls - that could bring cheaper cellular-like units to the masses.

Around May, the government will auction off the portion of the radio spectrum that PCS will use, raising an estimated $10 billion toward reducing the federal debt.

Today the FCC will set the ground rules for that auction: who will be eligible, how much territory each license will cover and what kind of advantage will be given to smaller pioneering companies.

Given the nature of the opportunity - insanely lucrative, by most vague estimates - and the heft of the players, it's not surprising that the preannouncement jockeying has been intense. "There has been a tremendous amount of lobbying going on," observed Mark Lowenstein, research director for wireless and mobile communications at the Yankee Group.

Though the FCC ultimately will make the call - so to speak - industry handicappers predict the cellular companies will be allowed in PCS outside their home regions and perhaps be restricted to specific PCS niches in their regions.

Cellular technology operates through cells - antennas with switching and routing gear, each covering up to 30 miles. PCS employs smaller, more densely packed microcells, each of which can blanket only about a quarter-mile area.

Because they don't have to generate such strong signals, PCS headsets can be smaller and lighter. And the high-powered transmission means calls can get through tunnels and inside buildings. By most estimates, PCS will be at least 30 percent cheaper to build than cellular.

"This is going to change the way people communicate," said Peter Shapiro, consultant at Arthur D. Little Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. 


 by CNB